All my friends are small town, my parents live in the same small town, my child is a small town, but that's a little opportunity. Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I'm your host Kaneda. Thank you for being here. This show is really starting to gain some momentum. We are starting to say stuff that everybody can't deny. The pinball prices are going through the roof. So many other shows are just hour-long infomercials for people that need to sell you games. And here we are at Canada's Pinball Podcast. And all we're saying is this. We love pinball. We love the passion in pinball. We just don't want to be taken advantage of. And as we see these games slide all the way back to the prices they used to be before the craziness ensued, how can you not ask yourself, why don't we just stop going crazy and just bring it back to a place where everybody wins? Distros win, manufacturers win, and we win as customers. Everybody walks away from that scenario winning. So I want to talk about on this episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast a few things. I want to go around the horn and just say what's going on at each manufacturer. Where are the games? You know, there's some good updates. There's some positive updates even from Haggis Pinball. We haven't spoken about that. And then I want to talk about the main topic on the show. I want to talk about is this now a time in which Boutique Pinball is going to start to win people over more and more? Is boutique pinball going to make people feel better about you giving them your money? And have the big two companies, Jersey Jack Pinball and Stern Pinball, have they treated their customer base with too much arrogance and too much greed? And are people going to start to say, no more of this? And the other thing about it is this, too, people, it's like the reason why Stern clobbered everybody is they were really the only company coming out with themes people actually wanted. And now that we know for a fact that Dutch pinball is making back to the freaking future, it shows everybody that it's not impossible for a boutique company to make a dream theme pinball machine. And also the other thing about it is this. I think everybody's waking up to the sober reality. It's like you almost don't even feel good about spending this much money on something that everybody has. has. Stern has killed its own Ellie market. Jersey Jack killed its collector's edition market. And so now, you know, we're looking at these boutique companies and if you buy from them, you feel like you're part of a smaller community of owners and you feel better about this smaller company sort of sticking it to the big man. There's a reason why in life, when you read the story of David versus Goliath, people want to be David. That is who we connect with. There's a reason why when we watch movies like Star Wars, we're rooting for the small underdog named Luke Skywalker. We're not rooting for the evil empire. And I think Jersey Jack and Stern Pinball are the two companies that are inside a big Death Star that looks like two big pinballs. And they just fired their tractor beam at Alderaan and blew up everybody on Alderaan who was their LE collectors. And now how do we go back from there? We're not going to forget it, Seth Davis, what you've done to the very people who made your company very successful. You know who didn't make Stern Pinball successful? Seth Davis. He's walking in on top of a 10-year run in which Stern Pinball really turned everything around. And he's making boneheaded moves for short-term gains. And they have this huge factory. and I think it's going to bite them. And I think the opportunity is there now for boutique pinball. We're going to talk about that. All right, before I do that, I want to give a few shout-outs to my top contributors on Canada's Pinball Podcast. Sitting pretty at the top with $100 a month, Mr. Steve Jablonski. Steve, you and me, man. You and me. You're just in a different realm. I want to give a shout-out to Andrew G., Dan Jansen, Kenneth Collins, Leaderboard Arcade, Pete Rosen, all of you guys. $50 a month. If you want to enter that supernal realm, people, You too will get a shout-out. There's a lot more people in the Omokase Club. I'll give them a shout-out on the next show. And let's welcome our newest Canadian Club members, Matt Peterson, Greg Spaldalini at $10 a month. Greg, thank you so much. I love it when people come through the door, and they don't come through at $5. They're like, I know this show is worth more than $5. We've got Aaron. We've got Kevin. We've got Shane Quick, Greg Benz, Jason, and Paul M. Welcome, guys, and Andrew Martin. Everybody, welcome to the show. All right, let's go around the horn real quick, and then we're going to talk about boutique pinball. We're going to get right to it. No Win Schilling, no giveaways, no freaking advertisements for distributors. I mean, come on. What is with the pinball media advertising distributors? I'm going to tell you right now. Here's the deal. Where the heck are the Pulp Fiction machines? I want my Pulp Fiction LE, and so do like 999 other people. What is up with CGC? Does anyone even have an answer? It is now November. These games were supposed to be on the line in October. And so if this delay continues, we are no way going to see our Pulp Fiction LEs anytime soon. And I think it's going to be like another year. I don't think you're going to see Pulp Fiction LEs going into people's homes until midway through 2024. They fooled us again. How many times can CGC fool us that they're actually going to stick to a manufacturing schedule? Is there even people over there? That's the part I don't get. Like how many people actually work at CGC and why is it impossible for them to even be remotely on schedule? So that's happening over in the world of Pulp Fiction. Now, a company that seemingly is on schedule, and I might have to eat some crow here, ladies and gentlemen, is Haggis Pinball. Now, Damien sent out an email that they are wrapping up all of their fathoms by the end of the year and production for Centaur should begin in December, which means people will start to receive their games sometime in Q1 of 2024. Now, Q1 is three months, and so that seemingly is the new milestone for Haggis Pinball. In the email he sent out, it was all about like picking the way you want your game shipped. You can pay the $1,800 air freight to get your game right now, or you can wait for the container to fill up. Now, the problem with the container option, we solve this with Fathom It takes about two years for a container to fill up because nobody wants to wait that long because it takes them forever to make like 50 games to fill up a container So what they really saying to you is this like we want $1,800 right now to secure your game and then they're going to ask you for money and tell you your game is going to be ready in eight weeks and it might take eight months. This is the real test of Haggis Pinball right now. And I know I've been super hard on this company. The real test of this company and whether or not they're in good shape or they're going to continue to rob Peter to pay Paul is simply this. They need to be accurate this time around. Now, Damien, it's been years. There's no more excuses. They need to accurately tell people if you pay in full on this date, you can expect your game on this date. If they tell people eight weeks and it takes eight months, then something is rotten in the state of Denmark and they need to figure it out because now there's no more excuses, Damien. There's no more excuses. You know how long it's going to take. You don't have to be disingenuous. And if you actually need people's money eight months in advance, just be honest about it. We still have not seen a factory tour of Haggis Pinball and they have not sold out on those crazy expensive versions of Centaur, like the Oblivion edition for like $17,500. People are not going to buy this stuff because you know if you bought that edition of the game, it's going to lose like $4,000 the moment you unbox it. And let's be honest, Centaur is not a game that the majority of people who are excited about pinball are clamoring to get. Fathom was the more popular title. I think a lot of people are just going to stay on the sidelines when it comes to ordering from Haggis like new in box, like you're just going to wait. I could go get a fathom right now and have experienced zero drama and have the game in my home before other people who ordered the game two years ago. All right, let's go over to Spooky Pinball. I got a really nice note from Luke over at Spooky and he said, Chris, I want to confirm for you that our next collector's edition game will be less than $10,000. So in a world in which Canada is crying about these expensive pinball machines, it is nice to see Spooky Pinball is keeping the price less than $10,000 for a collector's edition is what Luke said. Not the standard edition, the collector's edition, which is really interesting because that means Spooky Pinball will competitively price their game at less money than Barrels of Fun has priced its Labyrinth game. And so this is why competition is good. And this is why the more pinball companies we have putting their heart and soul into games and actually charging us a price that's not greedy. I think we're going to see more and more people move towards these boutique companies. And I'm going to talk about that in a little bit. So there's some news about Spooky Pinball. They're basically around 1,200 Scooby-Doos have been made. So which is crazy because like now there's like 700 more they need to make. I mean, that's a lot of Scooby-Doos. They're going to put a lot of Scooby-Doos into the world. I will say this. Every time I look at a Scooby-Doo, it still puts a smile on my face. It's a great theme for pinball. And I was saying to someone the other day, can you imagine if Foo Fighters, which is an amazing layout, one of the best layouts I've played in a long time, if the Foo Fighters game was themed as Scooby-Doo and had all of the assets from Scooby-Doo, I don't think you'd see anybody ditching the game. I think one of the reasons why we're seeing Foo fighters go down in value and we're seeing, you know, new in box game just listed for like $10,000. It's simply because of the theme of Foo Fighters. I still think, you know, most of us didn't really want a Foo Fighters pinball machine, but what they did with it was so special, but it doesn't change the fact. If you're not a big fan of their music, you know, you'll enjoy the pin, but you're not going to want to keep it forever. And again, all of these stern machines now, you have to kind to make a decision in the first six months. Like, do I keep it or do I move it on? Because the longer you keep it, you're going to be losing hundreds or thousands of dollars in the first six months. You know, that's a hard pill to swallow. Now, for those out there who love the Foo Fighters as a band, if you bought in L.E. and you don't want to sell it ever, then you're never really going to lose, right? You only lose money on the day you sell something and you only make money on the day you sell something as well. I've got these Pirates of the Caribbean fanboys who are like, I made $15,000 on my Pirates. And I'm like, no, you didn't. You didn't sell the game yet. You can only get that money when you sell. Speaking of boutique companies, I've reached out to my friends over at Barrels of Fun. And I just want to get a sense of, are these games on the line? How many are going out? How are they going to handle allocation? Are they building them in numerical order. I have a lot of questions about Labyrinth builds. I don't really know what's happening. I don't feel like I'm seeing games being unboxed every week. And so that's my question to the company. Are you on schedule? Are you waiting for parts? Like what's the deal with the game? And bye, buddy. Can I give you a hug? All right. So Killian just interrupted me and I actually checked my phone and I got a text message from my friend Robert Blakeman Dumasnail and he said, yes, games are on the line. Four more are about to go to the Houston Arcade Expo. So if you're going to that show, there will be four more Barrels of Fun Labyrinth games. And he said, games are about to go out. So I think they're gonna send games out in batches. So that's exciting news. All right, so what else is going on in pinball? You know what's not going on in pinball right now? Nobody's buying Elton John. I mean, talk about a game where I don't even know what they do next. Like, what does Jersey Jack do next? Everybody knows that Harry Potter and Matrix are coming. It is most likely going to be in this order. I think we're going to see Harry Potter as a Mark Sadan game. And I think we're going to see the Matrix as Eric Meunier's next game. I think that's going to be how it goes. I don't know if they're going to ask Steve Ritchie to make another game. I got to be honest. I got to be honest. I mean, he had his shot. And I almost feel bad for Steve. I don't feel like he wanted to make Elton John. I feel like it's what was available. I imagine if you're Steve Ritchie, right? You rock in and wearing all black, right? We're like the Johnny Cash of pinball. You're the king. You're the badass. And you're like, all right, Jack, what do you got for me? What are the two games I can make? And Jack looks at you and says, well, you can make Elton John or the Muppets. And he just looks at him like, are you effing kidding me, bro? I left Stern Pinball where I got to make Black Knight, ACDC, Star Wars, Led Zeppelin. And you're telling me I can only make Elton freaking John and the Muppets? And Jack like what the matter Steve I picked the best themes that would bankrupt a company if I didn have a billionaire who now owns 100 of my dream And that the Jersey Jack story He's just a salaried employee now. I feel bad for Jack, but you know what? He picked these themes. He did it to himself. Nobody else did it. He picked these themes. And this game is dead on arrival. It's funny seeing all the spam on Facebook, people trying to sell these games. And this game is never going to have a Pirates of the Caribbean second life. I love that people think like it's going to be just like Pirates. They're going to cut the run short and then everybody's going to want one. And the reason why that's not going to happen is nobody ever wanted this game. Like remember Pirates people, everybody wanted it. Then Jersey Jack made us wait a year for it. Then they took the two most impressive mechanisms out of the game and then nobody wanted it. Like this game on day one, nobody wanted it, right? So how are you going to get people excited? And at the end of the day, most of the people buying pinball are grown men and they don't really want an Elton John pin. They would much rather have a pinball machine about pirates and treasure chests and Krakens and gold coins and beautiful maidens, all that stuff that has to do with Pirates of the Caribbean. You know, and I feel bad for anyone who ordered Elton John. Can you imagine like walking into like a pinball room and being like, hey guys, I just wrote a check for $15,000 for Elton John and everybody just like drops their drink and stares at you and is like, well, why would you do that? Like, why would you know you just lost so much money? Like you just wasted at least like, let's be honest here. An Elton John collector's edition right now is probably at best worth $12,500 at best. We just saw a Godfather CE put up for sale. I put it on Facebook for 12.5, right? It's got 77 plays on it for 12.5 and it's the second owner. It's not even the first owner. And so now we have a second owner game for 12.5. So what's going to happen now to all the Godfather CEs? I'll tell you this though. The best news for Godfather CE owners is Elton John because Elton John being a total flop has actually secured the value of Godfathers because everyone's not trying to bail on their godfathers. All right, everybody, anything else going on in the world of pinball that I'm missing? Nope. So here's the thing. I think we're going to see the rise of boutique pinball like never before. I really do. I think we're going to see boutique companies like Barrels of Fun, like Spooky Pinball, like Dutch Pinball. I think we're going to start to see these companies actually be in the best position possible to Carl Weathers what's going on in pinball right now. Because Stern Pinball, if you think about it, and Jersey Jack Pinball, they built these big factories. They now have all of this space and they now have to make a certain amount of games to make those big lines profitable. And so how are they going to survive in a world in which a lot of people now are not going to buy their products new in box because they're watching their products tank in value on day one. So nobody wants to absorb the risk to bail out Seth Davis's business model, which is basically fleecing everybody. Nobody wants to take the risk to bail out Jack Guarnieri's business model, which is basically handing every single owner of his new in-box games is basically losing now like 10 to 20% in value on day one. And the only reason people are losing that value, people don't think it's any other reason than the fact that they arbitrarily raise these prices. They thought the times would be as good as they were during COVID. They saw what games were going for when COVID went nuts, and they adjusted accordingly to try to take all of the secondhand value away from customers. A plethora of pinball media that have been telling you to buy, buy, buy everything. And where has that led you? If you followed the advice of those people, think about how much money you lost this year. And look, you could have still had all the same amount of fun if you listened to Kaneda, and you would have saved yourself thousands of dollars. And so I think we're going to see a lot of people pushing back against these big companies with their big factories who need to find homes for hundreds of games a freaking week, people. Think about that for a minute. A boutique company can be set up where they could be profitable and make money if they just make like 10 to 20 games a week. And they only have to find 10 to 20 people every week to buy one of their games. Let's say they make 20 games a week. That's 1,000 games a year. and that's all they need to remain a healthy, viable company. And then it starts to get really interesting, right? Because if these boutique companies can start to pick themes that are appealing to at least a thousand people a year and those thousand people a year become satisfied with just buying maybe one game from a boutique company and not running at every single New Jersey Jack or Stern machine, then what's going to happen to those big companies? Who's going to be buying all of those games? You know, I almost feel like the big companies like Stern, the way forward for them is more towards operators now than it is home collectors because they screwed over all the home collectors. You absolutely have to be worried if you're a home collector who invested heavily in Stern, how they've been treating you lately. And it's almost like if Stern wants to make mass-produced games, then they better hope there's going to be a lot of orders for pros to put on location. Because I don't think you're going to see people wanting to spend this much money on games that they're just going to make better versions of down the road. And the only way I would feel comfortable ever again buying a Stern LE, like if they make Jaws LE, I want Stern to come out and say, this is it. This is the final limited version of this game we are ever going to make. We have a lot of exciting titles in the portfolio coming out, and we are not going to make something better. So if you spend $13,000 on us, you can be rest assured at night we are not going to one-up your purchase. I would love for them to say that. They're not going to say it. They've been doing everything but the opposite. But with these boutique companies, if you buy Scooby-Doo, you're never going to feel bad about buying Scooby-Doo, like you've got some lesser version, or they're going to make another edition of Scooby-Doo. Spooky Pinball is never going to make another version of Rick and Morty. I mean, it wasn't the smartest decision financially, but they held true to their word. And at some point, don't we want to respect companies that hold true to their word? Doesn't it matter the principles that a company displays? Like, why do you just want to blindly buy stuff from companies that are now going against the very passionate people that made them successful? I mean, that's my whole thing lately about all of this. And I think the door is wide open And I think Dutch pinball with Back to the Future it like the two towers Like Dutch pinball is coming to all of us now at the turn of the tide It like Barry is like Gandalf the White like at five o at the top of the mountain on Shadowfax facts about to roll down that mountainside with back to the future in his staff And he about to shine a bright light on this hobby that's going to send a signal to everybody. Look at you, everybody out there, everybody out there thought that only Stern Pinball could get back to the future. Everybody out there. And not only are you going to get back to the future from Dutch Pinball, but you're going to get everybody you want involved in the game. Everybody throw a name out there that you would love to be working on this project and you know who I'm talking about and you're going to get it. And that is going to be the ultimate moment in which boutique pinball is going to show everybody that we can get these themes. We can make these games. And not only are we going to make these games, we're going to make them with a level of passion and we're going to make them slowly and we're not going to oversaturate the market with our products. That's the other part. I feel like now everyone's like waking up to the reality that like when you buy a Stern machine, it's just like everybody owns it, like nothing is special. And then you go on the marketplace, everything's always for sale, everything's always available. You just have one of another Stern. And that worked for a while. It really did when they preserved the LEs of their games. They really needed to protect what it meant to be limited and they didn't. And I think they screwed themselves over. They killed the golden goose. And boutique companies are in a great position right now because everything they make is limited. And they're in a great position because their factories are not so big. They're in a great position because they don't have 400 mouths to feed on the line. They're in a great position because they don't need to sell 2,000 games a month. And when you come out with a game like Venom and you're basically bullying your distributors that they have to take it. You know what Stern is doing. I mean, they are bullying their distributors. You have to take this game or you're not gonna get Jaws. You have to take this game you're not going to get the next one. And this system is not going to work. It's worked for the longest time when prices were right because people would jump in and not even think about it. Now that everybody's losing money, now that Canada's philosophy of wait and see is being adopted by more and more people every single month, it's going to change the landscape of pinball. And if you don't think Canada has any influence, I mean, look, I've got 3,000 people that follow me on Facebook, 3,000. I know there's over 700 people that listen to this podcast right Now, probably a lot more than that, that share it with their friends. And just think about that for a minute. That's a good percentage of people that might have bought Elton John, might have bought collector's editions of that game or Ellie's of like Stern's Venom. And I'm not saying that don't buy the game. But what I'm saying, and I'm pointing out time and time again, if you wait it out, you're going to save so much money and nobody can say, hey, he's wrong. Like I waited and I couldn't get one. Like when was the last time anyone has said that? And here's going to be the ultimate test. The way this market responds to Jaws is everything. Now, look, I think Jaws is going to sell just fine, but I don't. And I mean this. I don't think it's going to be like, oh, $13,000 for a Jaws LE and then people are going to be spending like $16,000, $17,000, $18,000 to get one if they didn't get one on day one. And the reason why I'm going to tell you this, the game is not going to have the assets. And also, like I've heard from people who have seen the LE version of the game and they think it's pretty damn ugly. So we shall see what happens. This is going to be an exciting moment. I don't think we're going to see Jaws until January. But my prediction is this. I think there's a new era of boutique pinball that's coming. I think the goodwill that these boutique companies are building with their audiences is speaking volumes. And I think Jersey Jack and Stern Pinball needs to eat some humble pie. They've just taken it too far. And they've shown us how they feel about us. And we haven't forgotten what they did with James Bond's 60th. We haven't forgotten that they think that a thousand people are going to buy Venom at freaking $13,000. And I heard the greatest analogy of Venom ever by my friend, Mr. Greg Colton. He's like, Chris, the reason why Venom is never going to really sell well, the reason why Venom wasn't executed properly is simply this. The whole game is designed around the fact that the actual play field adjusts depending on which Venom you become. And he's like, that's supposed to be the cool moment in the game. But he's like, here's why the game is so stupid. When you start playing Venom, you select your character when they've already transformed into Venom. So it should be the other way around. Like you should pick Captain America and play as him for a little bit. And then when you turn into the symbiotic version of Captain America or the Venom version, then the game starts to transform in front of your eyes. But that doesn't happen. It just happens the moment you start the game. And he's like, that is the dumbest way to make Venom. So there you go. Another reason why Venom is just going to come and go like a fart in the wind. And Stern Pinball is going to need a hit. And is it going to be Jaws? And then how are they going to follow up Jaws, though, with like Dungeons and Dragons and John Wick? Those two themes are not going to crush. And I'm telling you right now, you know what makes me so happy? Just knowing that Back to the Future is coming, like just knowing that that game is coming, knowing that Matrix is coming. You know, I'm not really that excited for Matrix because, like, with Jersey Jack, it's just, like, how are they going to screw it up? They're going to make Matrix with just looping clips that aren't synced up. It's going to have, like, slot machine sounds. And they're just going to find another way to mess up a game. That's what they've been doing for the last, like, three games. And I almost have, like, no faith anymore in Jersey Jack. And they don't deserve our faith. Like, they really didn't. Like, Steve Ritchie was going to come back and just stick it to everybody at Stern. And Stern's been yanking everything out of my games. and you're going to see they took nothing out of Elton John. You didn't put anything in Elton John, Steve. This is the only pinball podcast that will call it like it is. Where the heck was almost three years of work going into Elton John, man? Like, seriously, like, how could you not sit in a room with engineers and design better stuff in, like, three weeks? Like, I just don't get it. Everybody, thank you for being a member of Canada's Pinball Podcast. We're going to win our seventh Twippy. It's going to happen. I can't wait to voting start so we can just show everybody that this is where it's at And where it's going to be in 2024 is in all those small towns where all those boutique companies reside. Peace out. Thank you.